Don't Speak
by BringOnTheWonder1997
Summary: There are some things that Emma Swan simply doesn't talk about.


**I think I may actually do a direct sequel to this, depending on the response I get to this fic, it's the first time that I have a sequel planned when I first write the story. I was re-watching all 4 seasons in preparation for season 5 when this hit me and I deliberated for a while about when to set this, but I've decided on late season 2 because I have some specific ideas in mind for the sequel. Please read and review!**

There are some things that Emma simply doesn't talk about.

Like the fact that one of her first memories is remembering that her first set of foster parents had sent her back age three after having their own baby. There had only been enough room and money for one child, and it wasn't Emma.

She doesn't talk about it, the first time that she realised that she wasn't good enough for being herself; that she could be returned like an unwanted parcel that someone had left on a doorstep.

Instead she chooses to forget it.

* * *

She doesn't talk about her foster homes. She doesn't talk about her foster parents. Especially not homes three, five, six and nine.

In three she learns that the other children can be cruel, even if you think they'll watch out for you because you've all been through the same thing. Instead they look at you with hatred because you still haven't learnt that the world isn't kind to orphans and you still think that life can get better. And somewhere in the back of their minds they think it is better if you learn differently now.

In five she learns that foster parents can be cruel as well. At previous homes she'd gone hungry, been forgotten. She had walked home from school by herself because no one cared enough to pick her up.

But in this house she learns that sometimes that's not as bad as it gets, that they can leave your scars to bleed in an entirely literal way.

She is taken from that home with bruises the shape of fingers wrapped around her arms and her eyes a little more broken.

House six is where she learns that they can't break her. That sometimes people are kind. There's an older girl in that home, getting ready to break out before she can be thrown out the second she stops being a meal ticket, and she heads out every evening to start putting money together for when she runs.

When she catches Emma looking she doesn't act like the other children have, looking at her with pity for the rest of the years she will spend in the system.

Instead she invites Emma along and Emma learns how to hotwire a car and break into a house and pull a scam and get away with it.

But she knows people don't like to hear about things like that so she doesn't mention it.

She doesn't just not talk about home number nine, she doesn't think about it.

The hospital reports do all the talking for her.

* * *

She doesn't talk about Lily, about the hope that settled in her heart at the thought of a friend, of someone who understood her - who was as lost and lonely as she was.  
That place in her heart has been replaced by the pain of knowing that letting people settle there only gives them the power to hurt you.

She doesn't talk about the night that she broke free, escaping out of the window for the last time because after this it's just her and the open road and there will be no one to stop her from simply walking where she wants to go. She takes the money she has collected in the last seven months with her, not knowing how far it will get her and not caring.

She takes the baby blanket as well and she doesn't know why.

She thought she was leaving all of this behind.

But her name has been stitched into that blanket by hand and she can't help but continue to wonder why.

* * *

She doesn't talk about how she met Neal. All of them know that she did and that they ended up involved but only two people know the beginning to that story.

She's told Henry a few anecdotes about the pair of them, the few occasions when they weren't engaging in a life of crime, one or two from their Bonnie and Clyde days. She doesn't know what Neal's told him but she doubts it'll be much more, he's too much like her to think fondly on the past and also knows that perhaps he shouldn't be encouraging their son with wild tales of stunts the pair of them barely got away with.

Emma knows that Mary Margaret - her _mother_ \- wishes that she would talk about it, that she would tell her all about it because she missed so much of her daughter's life and she won't even talk about it.

She doesn't talk about the day that she found out she was pregnant, with a new hole in her heart gouged out by the car keys in her hand. She thinks about driving them into the wall but that will only get her into trouble and she doesn't need any more of that.

She's in enough already.

* * *

Emma also refuses to think about the day she had Henry, the pain in her body for once matching the pain in her heart, until her heart won. She can't bear to look at her son because she knows she can't keep him. She knows that she's not good enough for him - a teenage thief with nothing other than the backseat of her car and who's never had a family to speak of. She knows that her child deserves better than that and that she can't give it.

She doesn't look at him because she knows that if she does she won't hand him back, and that's not fair to her son.

Instead she watches the reflection of the nurse taking her son away in the window and even though her cuffed wrist is chaffed and bleeding she can't feel a thing.

* * *

She talks about the day she met Henry, but only about the fact that his turning up was a complete surprise, even if it was the best surprise ever. She doesn't talk about the fact that she was celebrating her 28th birthday alone, as she had the last ten years (the last birthday that had been celebrated was spent in prison, and doesn't that just say enough?)

* * *

Emma refuses to talk about her past, even knowing how much it hurts Mary Margaret (her _mother_ ) to know so little about her daughter's childhood, and what she does know, told before either of them had believed in the curse or magic, is not pleasant.

But Mary Margaret wants answers, especially with Neal back in her life, and Emma doesn't know if she'll actually be able to tell her. She's never had a family before, never had anyone care for her unconditionally, and she doesn't know what to do with it now she's found it.

But she watches her mother give her a gentle smile from the sink where she is washing up, watches her father ruffle Henry's hair fondly, and thinks that maybe they can find out together.


End file.
